History The Ten Thousand Gods, according to the Senpet, have existed since the First Age of the world and each played their part in crafting the foundations of the world as we know it. The Ten Thousand were made by Shilah and Kaleel, each god governing an aspect of the physical world, from the Nahr’umar and each of its individual tributaries to to the clouds and earthquakes and storms that swept across then then fertile land on occasion. The Ten Thousand created little, but did their duty of maintaining their small pieces of the world with great skill and fervor. Senpet faith says that the Ten Thousand protected the world far into the Second Age, even against the ravages of the wars that rocked the end of the Second Age.
The Day of Wrath was as sudden and terrible for the Ten Thousand as it was for all others. The strength of Shilah’s fury was enough that some of the Ten Thousand were outright destroyed by the nuclear rage. Once the dust had settled, even more of the Ten Thousand faded into obscurity as those places they had protected no longer existed. Others came into being however, formed by the need of the others as new locations came into being that needed protection and guidance. Still, something had changed in the Ten Thousand, in the face of their pain, they grew more capricious and some even turned blood thirsty. There was less in the world, and they knew even gods now could die. Each of the Ten Thousand grew desperate to gather more to themselves to ensure their survival.
It was in this time of need that the people that would one day become known as the Senpet stumbled across the Ten Thousand and, seeking a new faith to buoy themselves rather than continue their prayers to a mad sun goddess, pledged themselves to the Ten Thousand. In return some claim that the Gods whispered their secrets to the first Pharaoh, and his final act was to write the Book of the Dead before madness overtook him. Other stories say Shilah herself wrote the book to destroy unwary mortals while still others say it was a compendium, written by mortals as the final resting places of all those gods thought destroyed by the Day of Wrath. What is undeniable however is that the Book of the Dead was one of the most dangerous items in the world. The first Pharaoh was driven mad by the text and ordered the construction of an entire city built with deadly traps inside it just to keep the book away from the world. The City of the Dead, as it would come to be called, was a marvel of the age and kept to it’s task for half a millennia before the book was finally stolen.
The Senpet, meanwhile, turned to slaking the thirst of their new deities. The gods required sacrifice after their suffering on the Day of Wrath, and while some required only crops and animals, others required a stronger and more meaningful sacrifice in order to gain their favor. The heart’s blood of man was all that could ease the pain of the Ten Thousand and so the Senpet began their ritualistic sacrifices to the Gods. It was not long before the Senpet realized while preparing the corpses that some of the magic of the ritual had seeped into the bodies as they came back to life. The first Ghuls had been created.
Centuries passed and in turn various of the Ten Thousand took their places as chief deities of the pantheon, only to be replaced later by others as their importance to the Senpet changed over time. By the time of the Great Drought, the gods had grown fat and happy once more, why then they punished the Senpet with a drought is a question none have been able to answer, if it was their fault at all. The desperation of the Senpet led to an increase in religious devotions even as the Pharaoh turned to more worldly measures to solve the dilemma. The Ten Thousand thought little of the Yodotai and their gods when they first arrived in the Burning Sands, it was a mistake some would not survive.
When war between the Senpet and the Yodotai broke out, many thought that with the blessing of the Ten Thousand they would easily manage to overwhelm this new enemy. They had, after all, been the most powerful military in the area for centuries. That confidence proved a weakness as the Yodotai took their opponent very seriously and the first few battles were devastating to the Senpet. When the final battle came, some of the Ten Thousand themselves came down to fight alongside their worshippers against the legions of the Yodotai, the most famous of which being Anhur. His fate is well known. He stood against Conquest himself, but in the end he was cut down.
Since the fall of the Senpet, the Ten Thousand have once again begun to starve. Many of their faithful have either turned away from them or been executed. Small followings continue to worship the Ten Thousand both in former Senpet lands and in Medinaat al-Salaam itself. It is barely enough though and the Ten Thousand have grown weak once more.
The Heavens The pantheon of the Ten Thousand is an incredibly complex place as one would expect out of a theology with thousands upon thousands of deities. Still, for all this complexity the heavens are very well ordered. A great deal of this is thanks to the Senpet concept of Ma’at. A binding philosophy based on three principles: Truth, Justice, and Order. This guiding principle has led the Ten Thousand and their followers since the beginning and shaped the Senpet Empire into the powerhouse that it was. While the leadership of the pantheon has been in flux over the millennia the two most common names to be at the head are Horus and Osiris. Osiris was once the king of the Ten Thousand, but was slain by his deceitful brother Set. He was put back together by his wife and came back to life of a sort, ruling over the realm of the Dead. Osiris is recognized as the King of the Dead and believers know that when they die, it will be Osiris that will stand to watch as they are judged alongside Ammit and Anubis. Horus, meanwhile, is recognized as the god of the Pharaoh. It is Horus who maintains the throne primarily, though a half-dozen other gods each protect the Pharaoh in their own way.
Others who have ruled the Ten Thousand at times include Hapi-Satet-Sobek, a coalition of the three primary gods who oversee the Nahr’umar river that ruled the Ten Thousand for over a century during one of the times of plenty for the Senpet Empire. Bastet, goddess of war, cats, and the hearth, also ruled for several decades and is usually a popular patron for those female pharaohs that have come to power. Re, lord of truth and learning has also spent several decades as the ruler of the Ten Thousand as his own worshippers came to power during the beginning of the Senpet Empire when great works and new studies were more common. In the earlier ages, Ma’at herself was in command of the pantheon, her role as the enforcer of truth, justice, and order has become less noticeable since those ancient times however. In modern times Khepri, who takes the form of a scarab, has become the leader of the Ten Thousand.
The Pharaoh also has a unique place in the hierarchy of the Ten Thousand as well. The position of Pharaoh is divine. It serves as the link between the Ten Thousand and the mortal world and allows the gods to make their will known more clearly. Unlike many divine positions however, the power of divinity is not held by the pharaoh himself, but in the position. This dichotomy allows for the position of pharaoh to outlive an individual and as a result the Senpet Empire has gone through five different dynasties that have held the position. Upon death, each pharaoh has gained divinity and joined the Ten Thousand, adding their own experience and power to the pantheon.
Displays of Faith The most obvious and well known examples of the faith of the Senpet has been the great temples and mausoleums they have constructed to worship. These massive structures reach far up into the sky and are uncontested in the world for their beauty and architecture. The Great Pyramids of the Pharaohs stretch out into the desert, each one a fantastic display of the power and faith of the pharaoh that resides inside. Cults to various pharaohs often form in the villages that pop up near such structures to encourage faith and sacrifices to be given to the new god.
Temples in the cities themselves are usually not as large or ostentatious, but see much more traffic than the tombs do. It is here that sacrifices are made and prayers are offered up to the heavens. Hymns play a crucial part in worship, it is believed that the songs have been brought to humanity by the gods themselves and that repeating the strict versus assists in creating a conduit to the heavens. The sacrifices themselves vary from god to god. While some require little more than goods or grains, many demand blood from parishioners. Some of the time an animal sacrifice is enough to satiate the demands of the god, but often enough a greater sacrifice is required and a human, most often a slave or prisoner, is slain, his blood and heart going to appease the bloodthirsty deity and assure their favor in the upcoming months or years. There are other dangers tied to this ritual though, as the body can become reanimated if not properly tended to, resulting in a ghul. The problem is common enough that specific orders have been founded whose primary purpose is the extermination of the undead.
A primary belief of the faithful is that the body and soul are intricately tied together. One is not simply broken away from the other, even after death. A portion of the spirit of the human will continue to inhabit the body, a belief reinforced by Osiris’ miraculous return from death thanks to his wife, Isis. For this reason, the Senpet are always careful to mummify the bodies of the dead, to ensure that this tie between body and spirit is never broken. If it is, then the spirit loses its way for eternity. The body must also be kept in good spirits with the things that it enjoyed in life while it makes its final journey into the afterlife. Those bodies that are not carefully tended to return to the mortal realm to haunt their old familiar places as ghuls.
On the journey to the afterlife, the deceased mortal is confronted by Anubis, Ammit, and Osiris. Anubis uses the celestial scale to weigh the deceased’s heart against a single feather from the wings of Ma’at. If his heart is heavy with sin the deceased’s soul is devoured by Ammit, if his soul is found to be lighter or on balance, he is allowed to pass on into the presence of Osiris.
Lifestyle The faith of the Ten Thousand is perhaps one of the most structured faiths in the world. The head of the faith is always the Pharaoh, whose position serves as a connection to the gods. Below the Pharaoh are the collection of High Priests, one for each province of the Empire, the highest of whom is the High Priest of the Eye, who serves in the capital. Below the High Priests are the Priests of the Temples. These are the priests who serve in individual temples and conduct services for the faithful. It is the priests who lead the prayers and devotions of the people and oversee sacrifices to make certain they are done properly.
The average faithful serves as the foundation of the faith, it is they who come up with the sacrifices that will be given and they are the ones who build the grand temples and tombs which declare the greatness of not only the Senpet but the Ten Thousand as well. They are not expected to commune with the gods however, that is left to the priestly order
After the Fall After the fall of the Senpet Empire, the faith of the Senpet changed somewhat. The most major change is the lack of a Pharaoh to serve as the connection between the people and the gods. The broken bond is one not easily mended while the Empire sits in the hands of the Yodotai and so the High Priest of Medinaat al-Salaam has taken up what duties he can in the interim. The destruction of temples has likewise caused the religion to go underground, which has caused additional dilemmas for the faithful. Priests are not always available in these trying times and organized meetings can be quickly snuffed out by Yodotai forces, as such more and more people have had to attempt to speak to the gods themselves. The greater influx of prayers has changed matters drastically and, more than that, the people of the Senpet have grown less reliant on the Priestly order. What this newfound personal ability to speak to the gods may mean for the future of the faith is a question that is far from being answered.
The Ten Thousand
History
The Ten Thousand Gods, according to the Senpet, have existed since the First Age of the world and each played their part in crafting the foundations of the world as we know it. The Ten Thousand were made by Shilah and Kaleel, each god governing an aspect of the physical world, from the Nahr’umar and each of its individual tributaries to to the clouds and earthquakes and storms that swept across then then fertile land on occasion. The Ten Thousand created little, but did their duty of maintaining their small pieces of the world with great skill and fervor. Senpet faith says that the Ten Thousand protected the world far into the Second Age, even against the ravages of the wars that rocked the end of the Second Age.
The Day of Wrath was as sudden and terrible for the Ten Thousand as it was for all others. The strength of Shilah’s fury was enough that some of the Ten Thousand were outright destroyed by the nuclear rage. Once the dust had settled, even more of the Ten Thousand faded into obscurity as those places they had protected no longer existed. Others came into being however, formed by the need of the others as new locations came into being that needed protection and guidance. Still, something had changed in the Ten Thousand, in the face of their pain, they grew more capricious and some even turned blood thirsty. There was less in the world, and they knew even gods now could die. Each of the Ten Thousand grew desperate to gather more to themselves to ensure their survival.
It was in this time of need that the people that would one day become known as the Senpet stumbled across the Ten Thousand and, seeking a new faith to buoy themselves rather than continue their prayers to a mad sun goddess, pledged themselves to the Ten Thousand. In return some claim that the Gods whispered their secrets to the first Pharaoh, and his final act was to write the Book of the Dead before madness overtook him. Other stories say Shilah herself wrote the book to destroy unwary mortals while still others say it was a compendium, written by mortals as the final resting places of all those gods thought destroyed by the Day of Wrath. What is undeniable however is that the Book of the Dead was one of the most dangerous items in the world. The first Pharaoh was driven mad by the text and ordered the construction of an entire city built with deadly traps inside it just to keep the book away from the world. The City of the Dead, as it would come to be called, was a marvel of the age and kept to it’s task for half a millennia before the book was finally stolen.
The Senpet, meanwhile, turned to slaking the thirst of their new deities. The gods required sacrifice after their suffering on the Day of Wrath, and while some required only crops and animals, others required a stronger and more meaningful sacrifice in order to gain their favor. The heart’s blood of man was all that could ease the pain of the Ten Thousand and so the Senpet began their ritualistic sacrifices to the Gods. It was not long before the Senpet realized while preparing the corpses that some of the magic of the ritual had seeped into the bodies as they came back to life. The first Ghuls had been created.
Centuries passed and in turn various of the Ten Thousand took their places as chief deities of the pantheon, only to be replaced later by others as their importance to the Senpet changed over time. By the time of the Great Drought, the gods had grown fat and happy once more, why then they punished the Senpet with a drought is a question none have been able to answer, if it was their fault at all. The desperation of the Senpet led to an increase in religious devotions even as the Pharaoh turned to more worldly measures to solve the dilemma. The Ten Thousand thought little of the Yodotai and their gods when they first arrived in the Burning Sands, it was a mistake some would not survive.
When war between the Senpet and the Yodotai broke out, many thought that with the blessing of the Ten Thousand they would easily manage to overwhelm this new enemy. They had, after all, been the most powerful military in the area for centuries. That confidence proved a weakness as the Yodotai took their opponent very seriously and the first few battles were devastating to the Senpet. When the final battle came, some of the Ten Thousand themselves came down to fight alongside their worshippers against the legions of the Yodotai, the most famous of which being Anhur. His fate is well known. He stood against Conquest himself, but in the end he was cut down.
Since the fall of the Senpet, the Ten Thousand have once again begun to starve. Many of their faithful have either turned away from them or been executed. Small followings continue to worship the Ten Thousand both in former Senpet lands and in Medinaat al-Salaam itself. It is barely enough though and the Ten Thousand have grown weak once more.
The Heavens
The pantheon of the Ten Thousand is an incredibly complex place as one would expect out of a theology with thousands upon thousands of deities. Still, for all this complexity the heavens are very well ordered. A great deal of this is thanks to the Senpet concept of Ma’at. A binding philosophy based on three principles: Truth, Justice, and Order. This guiding principle has led the Ten Thousand and their followers since the beginning and shaped the Senpet Empire into the powerhouse that it was. While the leadership of the pantheon has been in flux over the millennia the two most common names to be at the head are Horus and Osiris. Osiris was once the king of the Ten Thousand, but was slain by his deceitful brother Set. He was put back together by his wife and came back to life of a sort, ruling over the realm of the Dead. Osiris is recognized as the King of the Dead and believers know that when they die, it will be Osiris that will stand to watch as they are judged alongside Ammit and Anubis. Horus, meanwhile, is recognized as the god of the Pharaoh. It is Horus who maintains the throne primarily, though a half-dozen other gods each protect the Pharaoh in their own way.
Others who have ruled the Ten Thousand at times include Hapi-Satet-Sobek, a coalition of the three primary gods who oversee the Nahr’umar river that ruled the Ten Thousand for over a century during one of the times of plenty for the Senpet Empire. Bastet, goddess of war, cats, and the hearth, also ruled for several decades and is usually a popular patron for those female pharaohs that have come to power. Re, lord of truth and learning has also spent several decades as the ruler of the Ten Thousand as his own worshippers came to power during the beginning of the Senpet Empire when great works and new studies were more common. In the earlier ages, Ma’at herself was in command of the pantheon, her role as the enforcer of truth, justice, and order has become less noticeable since those ancient times however. In modern times Khepri, who takes the form of a scarab, has become the leader of the Ten Thousand.
The Pharaoh also has a unique place in the hierarchy of the Ten Thousand as well. The position of Pharaoh is divine. It serves as the link between the Ten Thousand and the mortal world and allows the gods to make their will known more clearly. Unlike many divine positions however, the power of divinity is not held by the pharaoh himself, but in the position. This dichotomy allows for the position of pharaoh to outlive an individual and as a result the Senpet Empire has gone through five different dynasties that have held the position. Upon death, each pharaoh has gained divinity and joined the Ten Thousand, adding their own experience and power to the pantheon.
Displays of Faith
The most obvious and well known examples of the faith of the Senpet has been the great temples and mausoleums they have constructed to worship. These massive structures reach far up into the sky and are uncontested in the world for their beauty and architecture. The Great Pyramids of the Pharaohs stretch out into the desert, each one a fantastic display of the power and faith of the pharaoh that resides inside. Cults to various pharaohs often form in the villages that pop up near such structures to encourage faith and sacrifices to be given to the new god.
Temples in the cities themselves are usually not as large or ostentatious, but see much more traffic than the tombs do. It is here that sacrifices are made and prayers are offered up to the heavens. Hymns play a crucial part in worship, it is believed that the songs have been brought to humanity by the gods themselves and that repeating the strict versus assists in creating a conduit to the heavens. The sacrifices themselves vary from god to god. While some require little more than goods or grains, many demand blood from parishioners. Some of the time an animal sacrifice is enough to satiate the demands of the god, but often enough a greater sacrifice is required and a human, most often a slave or prisoner, is slain, his blood and heart going to appease the bloodthirsty deity and assure their favor in the upcoming months or years. There are other dangers tied to this ritual though, as the body can become reanimated if not properly tended to, resulting in a ghul. The problem is common enough that specific orders have been founded whose primary purpose is the extermination of the undead.
A primary belief of the faithful is that the body and soul are intricately tied together. One is not simply broken away from the other, even after death. A portion of the spirit of the human will continue to inhabit the body, a belief reinforced by Osiris’ miraculous return from death thanks to his wife, Isis. For this reason, the Senpet are always careful to mummify the bodies of the dead, to ensure that this tie between body and spirit is never broken. If it is, then the spirit loses its way for eternity. The body must also be kept in good spirits with the things that it enjoyed in life while it makes its final journey into the afterlife. Those bodies that are not carefully tended to return to the mortal realm to haunt their old familiar places as ghuls.
On the journey to the afterlife, the deceased mortal is confronted by Anubis, Ammit, and Osiris. Anubis uses the celestial scale to weigh the deceased’s heart against a single feather from the wings of Ma’at. If his heart is heavy with sin the deceased’s soul is devoured by Ammit, if his soul is found to be lighter or on balance, he is allowed to pass on into the presence of Osiris.
Lifestyle
The faith of the Ten Thousand is perhaps one of the most structured faiths in the world. The head of the faith is always the Pharaoh, whose position serves as a connection to the gods. Below the Pharaoh are the collection of High Priests, one for each province of the Empire, the highest of whom is the High Priest of the Eye, who serves in the capital. Below the High Priests are the Priests of the Temples. These are the priests who serve in individual temples and conduct services for the faithful. It is the priests who lead the prayers and devotions of the people and oversee sacrifices to make certain they are done properly.
The average faithful serves as the foundation of the faith, it is they who come up with the sacrifices that will be given and they are the ones who build the grand temples and tombs which declare the greatness of not only the Senpet but the Ten Thousand as well. They are not expected to commune with the gods however, that is left to the priestly order
After the Fall
After the fall of the Senpet Empire, the faith of the Senpet changed somewhat. The most major change is the lack of a Pharaoh to serve as the connection between the people and the gods. The broken bond is one not easily mended while the Empire sits in the hands of the Yodotai and so the High Priest of Medinaat al-Salaam has taken up what duties he can in the interim. The destruction of temples has likewise caused the religion to go underground, which has caused additional dilemmas for the faithful. Priests are not always available in these trying times and organized meetings can be quickly snuffed out by Yodotai forces, as such more and more people have had to attempt to speak to the gods themselves. The greater influx of prayers has changed matters drastically and, more than that, the people of the Senpet have grown less reliant on the Priestly order. What this newfound personal ability to speak to the gods may mean for the future of the faith is a question that is far from being answered.